You can take author and actress Fannie Flagg out of the small town, but you can't take the small town out of Fannie Flagg. A native of Birmingham and still, sometimes-resident of Alabama, Flagg has written a new book that chronicles the life and death of one resident of Elmwood Springs. The fictional setting in Flagg's latest, Can't Wait to Get to Heaven, has been featured in some of her other books. She tells WBHM's Steve Chiotakis she keeps going back to small town America because it's a place, she says, people can identify with...

Like Flagg, Sonny Brewer is enamored with place. The former bookstore owner's first novel Poet of Tolstoy Park was about a philosopher poet who lived in the town of Fairhope, Alabama. Brewer's second novel finds the author again exploring the town...though this time Fairhope is seen through the eyes of a sixteen-year-old boy...a boy whose relationship with his father is tenuous at best. Brewer spoke with WBHM's Rosemary Pennington about A Sound Like Thunder.

And through his poetry, you can travel from the Alabama wiregrass to the heart of the Everglades. You can visit worlds built by a child's imagination, and adult worlds driven by laughter, love -- and loss. But at the end of your journey, you'll find the poet himself right here in our own backyard! Charles Ghigna trekked across the mountain from Homewood to talk about his work with Lissa LeGrand.

It's a tale of passion, politics, loyalty, betrayal and murder. And if Richard North Patterson's new novel, Exile, is as successful as Protect and Defend, Conviction or any of his other last eight books, it, too, will be an international best seller. Patterson started writing novels in the mid 1970's, when he was practicing law in Birmingham.

Birmingham neurologist Steve Rudd also practiced law and along the way, he developed an unusual side-interest that intersects with both of those careers...serial murder. Rudd's second novel features a quirky young psychiatrist named Kristin Van Zandt, a fictional Alabamian who has an eerie insight into what makes a serial killer tick. Reporter Dale Short talked with Steve Rudd about his book, The Sooty Man.

To hear the audio portion of the Community Calendar from Tapestry, click here.

Want to know more? Activeculture.info is a one-stop source for finding out what's going on in the Birmingham metro area.

The newest band spit out by the Birmingham music scene is an amalgamation of genres. Featuring Les Nuby of Verbena fame, Jake Waitzman and Keelan Parrish with Wes McDonald on lead vocals, Vulture Whale boasts some Birmingham heavy weights. The reviewer at the blog "Erasing Clouds" puts it this way...Vulture Whale is "...pure rock and roll goodness where rockabilly, classic Southern rock, and indie rock live together in a secretive polygamist marriage." The group's put out its first album, the self titled "Vulture Whale". This song, Baby in the Oven, is off the disc. Frontman Wes McDonald stopped by our studios to talk about how Vulture Whale came to life. (AUDIO MONTAGE)

Tapestry is produced by Tanya Ott, Michael Krall and Hunter Bell. Islara Vazquez tracks community events. We heard stories this week from Rosemary Pennington, Steve Chiotakis, Lissa LeGrand and Dale Short...and had production assistance from Robert Brooks. I'm Greg Bass, and we'll see you next week.